


The Spark, The Flame.

by withoutwords



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, M/M, Not A Lot Of Plot, Sexual Relationship, not a lot of porn, some very light dom/sub elements, vague emmerdale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:42:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s sex.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Sex.” Robert concedes, unfolding his arms to clench his hands around the edge of the desk. “The one thing we’ve done right for more than a year. The one thing we had to build everything else on. I talked, you talked, we fell in love - ”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spark, The Flame.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always confused about Mature and Explicit so I thought I'd be safe and go Explicit. Please be aware that a lot of their sexual encounters aren't sunshine and rainbows, but I wouldn't consider it 'dark' either.
> 
> This mentions some things that are going on in Emmerdale in the coming month - so be warned for very vague spoilers.
> 
> Happy Belated Anniversary!

Aaron doesn’t plan on it.

He’s a few beers down, lightening the weight on his shoulders, and Robert’s been sitting in the corner by himself all night. Aaron could go into town, could go to a club, could pick up a simple, no strings shag for the night. He could do all of those things and wake up tomorrow feeling no worse off – maybe feeling a little better.

Except he doesn’t.

“You right?” he says bitterly to Robert when he walks over, curling his hands around the edge of the table and leaning in. Robert looks unsurprised, bordering on indifferent, and it makes a surge of anger circle around Aaron’s spine.

“I’m just having a pint,” he says, taking a mouthful of his drink as if to demonstrate. His hairs a little unruly, like someone’s already ran their hands through it – Robert would have done that himself, Aaron thinks idly, that’s one of his things.

Aaron knows so many of his stupid things, like how he ties his shoes and how he folds towels and how he likes it when Aaron bites the inside of his thigh until it leaves a mark.

That’s the difference between sex with a stranger and sex with Robert – sex with Robert is so well travelled Aaron could draw all the maps for it. He could keep drawing maps and would never get tired because as much as he hates it, as much as he wants to hate this man, he’s the best sex Aaron’s ever had.

Robert knows that.

“Finish it and follow me,” Aaron bites out, ignoring Robert’s faint voice calling as he grabs a bottle of wine and goes up to his room. There’s a part of their story on every surface of this house, and it crushes him as he moves through it, like quicksand. Like that first kiss; just sinking into the unknown and _not fighting_ , you’re not supposed to fight it.

“Aaron,” Robert says at the threshold, lit up by the hall light behind him. Aaron’s on the edge of his bed and swigging from the bottle, trying not to wince every time he does. It’s revolting. “You’re in no fit state - ”

“I’m not drunk, Robert,” Aaron snaps, and holds the bottle out for him. “If I was drunk I probably would’ve punched ya.”

Robert closes the door and steps over to take the bottle. “Seriously?”

“If you don’t want it - ”

“I didn’t say that,” he says, having a drink. He pulls a face. “You couldn’t have grabbed the whiskey?”

“What, like that’s better? Jesus.”

Aaron gets up to snatch the bottle back, taking a long pull just to feel the pain. Booze, Robert, denial, falling back into old patterns. Aaron’s always been really good at hurting himself, he’s not sure why he ever thought he should stop. 

When he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, Robert’s watching with hooded eyes, and before he can let the usual thoughts seep into the cracks – _katiechrissieandypaddyleomum_ – he pulls him in by his stupid collar and crashes their mouths together.

Robert’s the same, opening his mouth and pushing his hips in; he feels and tastes and is the same at the root of it all. “Aaron,” he’s saying into Aaron’s open, panting mouth, taking the bottle and resting it on the floor. Aaron grabs at his shirt, pulling and ripping it to expose the soft flesh of his belly before Robert’s pushing him down on to the bed.

“Shit, shit I missed this,” Robert’s saying huskily, his knees either side of Aaron and his shirt coming off. He’s orange pale in the lamp light, and he’s lost some definition, and Aaron’s still never wanted someone more. He hates to think that he never will, that Robert is it for him. “Aaron I missed you.”

“Shut up,” Aaron yells at him, scrabbling for Robert’s buttons. His hands are shaking so much Robert has to take over, and he looks so big like this, towering over Aaron. “You don’t say nowt, you hear me? I don’t want to hear it.”

“Okay, okay,” Robert agrees in a hushing voice, and Aaron just sinks back into the bed, just lets Robert take over.

*

Aaron’s knuckles are bruised when it happens again.

He’d nearly hit his dad, envisioned the bones cracking in the old man’s face and enjoying it, but he couldn’t. Not with his mum pulling on his arm, or Paddy calling his name, or everyone looking at him like _there goes Aaron Livesy, Thug_. He could step back; he could be the bigger man. He’d been doing that his whole life.

“Hey, hey, hey,” someone is saying as he goes to swing another punch at the brick wall he’d just been fighting. It was Robert, pushing at his chest, pushing him off. Robert, with those stupid eyes, that stupid mouth curled into something that might be concern.

It took Aaron less than ten seconds to decide just to punch Robert instead. It felt like nothing, not good or vengeful, just nothing. Robert didn’t even hit the ground. “Just do one, Robert.”

“Bloody hell, Aaron,” Robert curses, grabbing at his eye. “I was just trying to help!”

“What, like that’s ever worked?”

“You want to punch the wall until your hand’s broken, go ahead!”

“I’m trying!” Aaron shouts, because they’re nowhere near anyone right now and Aaron’s past the point of caring anyway. “Why’re you in the way all the time, hey? Why do you push and push and - ”

“ _You’re_ pushing, pushing people away like you’ve always done - ”

“Why can’t you hate me enough to leave me alone?” Aaron goes on, not listening, _so sick_ of listening to Robert. The talk - the endless talk - always talking himself in and out of things, always twisting a story until it fits into his reality.

“I don’t hate you, you daft…” he starts, straightening up and closing in. Aaron’s chest is heaving with his frustration, with his anger and fume and powerlessness. “You think I fucked my life up so bad because I hated ya? You think I’m always around because I hate ya?”

“Don’t, don’t start with that when we both know tomorrow I’ll be worthless again, the pathetic little kid who cut himself - ”

“You were never that, that was just words.”

“Then give it up, Robert, just work it out already, yeah? I’m not listening any more.”

“Okay,” Robert says, as his face hardens, his lips thinning out into a line. “Fine. Don’t listen.”

When Robert pushes him back into the wall, Aaron doesn’t fight it. Robert doesn’t scare him – not when the threat is physical – and Robert knows hurting Aaron would be the last thing he did in this town. A bullet hole would be an easy way out.

Robert doesn’t look at Aaron as he starts to undo his fly. He doesn’t look at Aaron as he gets to his knees. He doesn’t look at Aaron when he pulls his pants down enough to free his dick, enough to get his hand around it and put it in his mouth. Aaron curses, he curses a lot, his head dipping back and his hips going forward.

Robert’s warm, and expert, he _knows this_. The way to drag his mouth up the shaft, the little twist of his tongue at the head, the way to get Aaron hard so fast his fingernails dig into the wall and hurt. “Fuck,” Aaron says, and he’s fucking into Robert’s mouth, hot and tight and a hand flails out to twist in Robert’s hair. Robert gets a hand around the bare skin of Aaron’s arse, fingers clenching tight at his cheek, flirting with his entrance.

He pulls off, says, “No rules saying you can’t talk,” all hoarse and teasing and Aaron shuts him up by pushing his head back down and he does, he says,

“Fuck,” and, “There,” and “ _Yes_ , Robert,” and maybe this, maybe sex with Robert is just like hitting a brick wall, but it feels a lot better. Aaron can’t deny that. 

*

The third time is like falling into a pattern.

There’s a party, and a village, and too much noise. The warning tone from his mum, and the looks between Andy and Ross, and the silence that he’s suffocating in because he knows he can’t say anything. He can, he can say a lot, but it’s not going to fix anything. He’s spilled so many secrets in the last twelve months and has nothing to show for it. _Nothing_.

“You want to fuck me?” Robert says from his place under Aaron, dishevelled and red faced and turned on. The hard line of his cock is pressed against Aaron’s thigh, and he thrusts it up just to annoy him. “Just do it Aaron, take what you want.”

Aaron has to swallow hard around the truth of that, and the look in Robert’s eyes. “On the floor of your sister’s house, and all? Classy.”

“You started it.”

“What are you, four?”

Robert doesn’t rise to the bait, just smirking at Aaron and driving up into him again. His fingers are cool against Aaron’s belly, against the scars he still has hidden under his tee. “Come on,”

“Not here,” Aaron says, short and pushing up to his knees. “You’ve got a room, don’t ya?”

When they get to Robert’s room – small and tidy and mirroring the sort of life he leads now, humble and unimpressive – Aaron tells him to strip. Robert’s still smirking, standing in the middle of his room with his shirt half unbuttoned and his pants twisted.

“What, slowly? Should we put on some music?”

“Shut up and do it, Robert.”

“Fine.”

Aaron stands there and watches him, revelling in the way Robert’s hands shake just a little. Robert does do it slowly, but he’s not provocative, he’s not smirking any more because he knows he’s not in charge here. And maybe he’s okay with that, maybe he wants that for Aaron, but it’s too much for Aaron to consider.

“So,” Robert says when he’s completely naked, scratching at his collar. His dick is dark, and hard, and Aaron doesn’t bother to pretend he isn’t looking. He looks, he feasts, and he’s going to claim. “You want me to dance now, or?”

“Funny,” Aaron says with a huff, still loitering in the shadows by the door. “Get on the bed. On all fours.”

Robert doesn’t say anything else. He just gets on the bed, gets on his hands and knees, and ducks his head. He doesn’t look back as Aaron gets undressed, or as Aaron gets out the condoms and lube, or as Aaron comes up behind him. He just stays there, his breathing getting a little erratic, the muscles in his arms pulsing.

Aaron crowds over his back, pulls his head back roughly and makes him turn in for a long, sloppy kiss that they both groan into.

“I like it when you’re quiet,” Aaron says, searching Robert’s eyes for something, anger maybe. There’s nothing like that, there. They’re soft, and genuine and when he says,

“I like it when I’m with you,” Aaron only answers by kissing him again. 

This time he draws a little blood.

*

It goes on for weeks.

Weeks bleed into months. It’s the only thing Aaron does that has no consequences, and that’s new territory for them. That’s almost liberating, really, that Vic could crash into Robert’s bedroom, or Chas could crash into Aaron’s and sure, they might be angry, but no-one’s getting hurt. It doesn’t hurt anyone, any more, and Robert’s not going to either.

“I could get us a room,” Robert says quietly, sidling up next to Aaron at the bar. Aaron had been watching his mum and dad, out the back, watching that snake twist his way back into their lives again. He was good, better than Robert even, and Aaron wonders why he missed that gene. Wonders if life would have been easier with it.

“You what?”

“A room. A nice one. Tonight, maybe, or - ”

“Uh, no thanks,” Aaron says, pulling a face at him, finishing off the last of his beer. He has no real plans tonight; everyone in his life is busy, everyone’s always busy. He could get the last bus into town. He could get drunk, meet someone, go home with them and find a new space to exist in for a little while. See if he fits there, instead.

“What, you’d rather just shag out at the scrap yard?”

Or he could go and be with Robert.

“Why not?”

“Seriously? I could - ”

“No. No plans, no talk, just this, alright?”

“Alright.”

It’s cold out, the heat in Robert’s car making Aaron feel a little nauseous, and it’s dark. The town is wrapped in cloud, in the threat of another storm brewing. Aaron almost laughs at the sense of irony. 

When they get out to the yard, Robert has to use the light on his phone to lead the way, clicking on a lamp as they get inside.

“You got supplies?”

“Always.”

Robert pulls a face as he sits on the edge of a desk, folding his arms. “Calling boys on Grindr around for tea and biscuits?”

Aaron scoffs at him. “Jealous?”

“Yes,” he says and he’s looking at Aaron so seriously Aaron can feel it in his throat. Yes, he says, like he’s said it the whole time, but he hasn’t. He never has.

“What are you playing at? Trying to book rooms, acting like this is something.”

“It is something, Aaron.”

“It’s sex.”

“Yeah. Sex.” Robert concedes, unfolding his arms to clench his hands around the edge of the desk. “The one thing we’ve done right for more than a year. The one thing we had to build everything else on. I talked, you talked, we fell in love - ”

“Don’t.”

Robert gets to his feet. “We did!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aaron spits, crowding in, pointing a finger in Robert’s face. Those were his feelings, that was his journey. Robert lost the right to them a long time ago. “That’s done.”

“No, it’s not. It never will be.” Robert gets his hands on Aaron’s shoulders, and give him the gentlest shake. He’s leaning right in, and his voice is lowered, and Aaron can feel the treacherous welling of his tears. “You want to tick it off, file it away, move on, then good. I want that too. But we’re not done. I’m not done. I want you, I want you so bad, I always have, you know that.”

Aaron kisses him to shut him up, to stop that endless flow of words, just like always. They wrap their hands around each others necks and faces and heads and just kiss for a long time, just kiss and nothing else. It aches down into Aaron’s lungs, he can’t breathe.

“I won’t talk any more,” Robert says, his forehead pressed against Aaron’s, his fingers digging into his back. “I’ll just show you, let me show you.”

Later, when Robert’s got his jeans half down and Aaron’s lowering himself onto him, when he feels that familiar stretch, and burn, and the pulsing press of Robert’s cock on his prostate. Later, he realises what he’s been trying to deny – he didn’t start this because he likes to hurt himself. He’s not trying to punish himself for anything. He’s _searching_.

For meaning, or happiness, or just to feel good. And it does.

“It feels _so_ good,” Aaron tells Robert, and Robert smiles.

Maybe that’s something to build everything else on.

*

Aaron doesn’t plan on it.

They’re fresh from a shower and munching on cold toast and it’s the first time since they started up again that they’ve stayed together over night. Robert’s grumbling about Adam’s mess, and Aaron’s pretending not to listen, flicking through the morning paper and trying not to freak out.

“Did you hear me or what?”

Aaron shrugs, and sips at his coffee. “If you had a pound for every time Adam said he’d do the washing up and didn’t - ”

“Ha, ha, very funny.”

“All sounds the same to me.”

Robert flops into a chair, and takes a bitter bite out of his toast. Aaron laughs. He looks like a little kid, he’s pouting, and for something so small. For something so simple like who’s doing the fair share of the chores.

“How about that hotel room?” he hears himself ask, and Robert just looks confused. “We could have dinner, get a pint, go to a room. Have some privacy for once.”

“Really?”

Aaron feels something in his chest swoop when he looks up to see Robert, his eyes big and shining. “Can’t hurt.”

“Okay. I’ll – I’ll book it this morning.”

“Nice.” Aaron finishes with his toast, putting his plate and mug in the sink, and as he walks passed Robert to go and get dressed, Robert grabs him at the elbow. He’s looking up from his place on the chair, and he’s smiling, and he says,

“Thanks,” like Aaron’s done the nicest thing any one ever has. “I – I’m looking forward to it.”

Aaron leans down to kiss him, an open, slick mouth and what might be the promise of more if they both didn’t have to get to work. He wonders if this might be their life one day, simplicity, bickering over dirty plates and rejoicing at the prospect of a dinner date.

He wonders if all the things they do around sex – all those moments they had because of it – were the real thing. The chats about football, and travel, and home – the real talking, where Robert wasn’t trying to manipulate him and Aaron wasn’t trying to force his hand. 

The _real_ talking; the truths about family, and love, and betrayal. The fact that they got naked to bare everything else – that they lit the flame and it burned them out. It ruined them for any other spark. 

He wonders if that’s always been them, and now’s their chance to relight it.

“Me too,” he says, he looks forward to dinner. 

He looks forward to figuring out the rest.


End file.
